The intermediate labour market

The intermediate labour market offers job opportunities
to those who are, for various reasons, difficult to place in work in the open
labour market (= the non-subsidised labour market).

The intermediate labour market provides job opportunities
under national labour market and social policy and, in addition, services that
promote job placement and coping at work. National labour market measures
(trainee work and preparation for working life) and subsidised work are intended
to improve professional skills, expertise and labour market status, and so aid
access to the open labour market.

The aim of active social policy (e.g. rehabilitative work
and work under the Social Welfare Act) is to maintain people’s functional
capacity and improve the way they manage their lives, thus enabling them to
enter the intermediate labour market or move directly into the open labour
market.

The measures under active labour policy are the
responsibility of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy and those under
active social policy that of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

The intermediate labour market is one of the development targets
of the labour market policy mentioned in the Government Programme. A
development programme for the intermediate labour market, under the joint
responsibility of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy and the Ministry of
Social Affairs and Health, is taking place during the programming period
2007–2013 of the European Social Fund (ESF). The programme is connected to one
of the guidelines included in the Ministry of Employment and the Economy’s
strategy for employment and entrepreneurship, to support those who have poor
labour market status and to lower the employment threshold.